Vanessa and Alex are the perfect hosts. We highly recommend them if you are visiting Cape Town. We shared their tiny flat with their Scotties, Shiraz and Chardonnay, and Chaucer, the most affectionate of cats. Seriously, even when they had other work to do they managed to chauffer us hither and yon. Alex is an accomplished cook who has worked under a few Michelin chefs and he cooked some great meals for us when we weren’t dining out.
Cape Point
We spent a blissfully Sunday touring all that makes the Cape such a wonderful place; Cape Point, Chapman’s Peak, Table Mountain and more. Foodies should flock to Cape Town for its wide selection of great grub at – compared to Europe – fantastic prices. And the soups are to die for!
Mandela's cell, Robben Island
Our one disappointment was Robben Island, the offshore prison where Nelson Mandela and so many others were incarcerated. We were herded from the ferry to a bus for the island tour, 50 or so to a group with a guide who had aspirations to be a stand-up comic. The guide who showed us around the cellblock and to the 10X10 cell where Mandela spent 18 years sleeping on the floor was actually a political prisoner in Section D, the Namibian cells. His crime, participation in a student protest in Soweto. In the four hours from Cape Town to the island and back we had only 20 minutes to ourselves, not nearly enough time to reflect on what Robben Island was and stands for today.
